David Geffen

David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American film producer, record executive, media proprietor, and philanthropist. In music, he co-founded Asylum Records with Elliot Roberts in 1971 before founding Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1990, and co-founding DreamWorks Records (with Mo Ostin, Michael Ostin and Lenny Waronker) in 1996. In film, he founded the Geffen Film Company in 1982 and co-founded DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg in 1994.

According to Forbes, Geffen is the wealthiest person in the global entertainment industry; he has an estimated net worth of US$9 billion as of 2024.

David Geffen was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York City, to Abraham Geffen (1903–1961) and Batya Volovskaya (1909–1988). Geffen's mother owned a clothing store in Borough Park called Chic Corsets by Geffen. Both of his parents were Jewish immigrants who met in Mandatory Palestine and then moved to the United States. His older brother Mitchell (born Mischa) Geffen (1933–2006) was an attorney who attended UCLA Law School and later settled in Encino, California.

Geffen graduated from Brooklyn's New Utrecht High School in 1960 with a "barely passing 66 average". He attended the University of Texas at Austin for a semester, and then Brooklyn College, before again dropping out. He then moved to Los Angeles, California to find his way in the entertainment business. He attended Santa Monica College (then known as Santa Monica City College) in Santa Monica, California, but soon left. Geffen attributed his challenges in school to dyslexia.

After a brief appearance as an extra in the 1961 film The Explosive Generation, Geffen began his entertainment career in 1964 as a mailroom clerk at the William Morris Agency (WMA), where he quickly became a talent agent. He learned about showbiz politics while reading the memos he delivered between agents. In order to obtain the talent agent job, he had to prove he was a college graduate. As he later reported in an interview, he claimed in his job application at WMA that he had graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Because he worked in the mailroom, Geffen was able to intercept a letter from UCLA to WMA which stated that he had not graduated from UCLA. He modified the letter to show that he had attended and graduated, then submitted it to WMA. His colleagues in the mailroom included Elliot Roberts, who later became Geffen's partner at Asylum Records.

In 1968, Geffen left WMA and became a talent agent for Ashley-Famous Agency. In 1969, he was executive vice president and talent agent for Creative Management Associates. At this time he also started working as a personal manager and was immediately successful with Laura Nyro and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

When Geffen was engaged in the process of looking for a record deal for young Jackson Browne, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun suggested that Geffen start his own record label.

Geffen co-founded Asylum Records in 1971 with Elliot Roberts after Geffen was unable to get Jackson Browne a record deal anywhere else. The name Asylum was chosen because of the owners' reputations for signing artists who would struggle to find a record company that would contract with them. The label was distributed by Atlantic Records at this time. Asylum became a generator of the Southern California folk-rock sound and signed artists such as the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, Judee Sill, and JD Souther. Later in the 1970s Geffen left Asylum, which was later acquired by Atlantic's parent company, Warner Communications, and merged with Elektra Records in 1982 to become Elektra/Asylum Records. The label was revived in 2004 as an urban music operation, signing hip-hop artists such as Waka Flocka Flame, Cam’ron, Gucci Mane, Paul Wall, Mike Jones and Bun B.

Geffen remained in charge until December 1975, when he went to work as vice chairman of Warner Bros. film studios. He then retired and in 1977 was informed (erroneously) that he had cancer. During his retirement period he spent a short time (the fall of 1978 and spring of 1979) teaching a noncredit seminar on the music industry and arts management at Yale University, where he featured classroom guests Jackson Browne and Paul Simon. In 1980 a new medical diagnosis revealed the error in the original diagnosis and Geffen was given a clean bill of health, whereupon he decided to return to working in the entertainment industry.

In 1995, he donated $5 million towards UCLA's Westwood Playhouse. The theater was renamed the Geffen Playhouse.

According to Forbes ("The 400 Richest Americans of 2004") and other sources, Geffen has pledged to give whatever money he makes from now on to charity, although he has not specified which charities or the manner of his giving. In 2002, he announced a $200 million unrestricted endowment for the School of Medicine at UCLA. The School thereafter was named David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. On December 13, 2012, UCLA announced that Geffen had donated another $100 million in addition to his 2002 donation of $200 million, making him the largest individual benefactor for the UC system. The latest donation funds the full cost of attendance for up to 30 students per year, beginning with the Class of 2017.

In 2015, Geffen pledged $100 million toward the renovation of what was then called the Avery Fisher Hall, part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. His gift, which amounted to about 20% of the hall's renovation costs, gave him naming rights in perpetuity over the building, now known as David Geffen Hall.

In December 2020, Geffen pledged to donate $46 million to the UCLA medical school, which is named after him.

In June 2021, Geffen gave $150 million to the Yale School of Drama. This gift allowed the drama school to eliminate tuition for all students enrolled in master's, doctoral, and certificate programs. The school was renamed the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.

As of October 2023, Geffen has an estimated net worth of $9.1 billion, making him one of the richest people in the entertainment industry.

In February 2020, Geffen sold his Beverly Hills estate to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for $165 million, a price believed to be the highest ever paid for a home in a California real estate transaction. In June 2020, Geffen purchased Casey Wasserman's Beverly Hills estate for $68 million.

In 2010, Geffen was a recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 2011, Geffen was awarded the President's Merit Award for "indelible contributions to the music industry" from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences at the 53rd Grammy Awards.